"Breeding-back" aims to restore or immitate extinct animals by selective breeding. This blog provides general information, the facts behind myths and news from various projects.

Friday, 22 September 2017

My vision for 2050

Having
looked back at past couple of years in this post, let us look forward
now. I take the year 2050 as a benchmark for a vision that I hope might become
reality in the ideal case, based on predictions and also personal wishes and
recommendations.

How far
will “breeding-back” be by 2050?

By 2050, if
things go well for all the projects that exist today, all of them will be
rather progressed (33 years mean 11 generations at maximum), and there are good
chances that a number of individuals already reached my “second milestone”,
uniting all achievable aurochs-like characteristics in one individual. However,
I think one should not make illusions on the genetic stability of the
populations. Depending on the selection policy and breeding technique of the
respective projects or herds, the populations will be more or less progressed
and many individuals might resemble the aurochs quite well already, but
probably in a variation spectrum that also includes a lot of traits of the
founding breeds, and especially a recessive genes tend to remain in a gene pool
for a quite long period of time (some undesired colour variants, perhaps also
variants responsible for tiny horns etc.).

Nevertheless,
let us assume that most projects will have quite satisfying and also impressive
results by 2050.

From
project A vs B vs C to one big metapopulation

It has been
my dreams for several years now that one day, at a point when all projects have
achieved a good quantity and quality of animals of progressed generations that
there will be no more population separation between the projects and breeds when
it makes sense from a breeding perspective to unite them by exchanging
individuals. Now, in 2017, it would not make sense yet. For example, if a good
Taurus bull of a progressed generation would be sold to a Tauros herd made up
of pure or first-generation individuals, the offspring would look good because
the Taurus bull already unites a lot of desired traits; if a Tauros bull, on
the other hand, was put on a more progressed Taurus herd now, it would just
increase the number of undesired traits in the herd while all desired traits
are already found in the population (just not in one individual at the same
time). Tauros (and the other, more recent projects too) have to create
well-mixed populations yet that enable them to pick individuals that contain
the full potential of the founding breeds. The Lippeaue herd has a time advance
in this respect because they started crossbreeding in 1996 and now have all
kind of possible breed combinations in their herd.

Exchange
between projects would make sense at a point when all projects have reached a
level where the gene pool has been mixed well and animals of a certain quality
level are prevalent. At an too early state it would not really make sense.
Except of course if one project needs f.e. bigger-horned individuals in general,
and adds a large horned individual from another project.

What would
be the benefit of exchanging individuals and creating a metapopulation? Alleles
have a higher risk of disappearing in smaller populations, and by exchanging
individuals from on fractioned population to the other you create a large,
diverse metapopulation. One large metapopulation would be more than the sum of
several separate lines/breeds from a genetic perspective, for the same reason
why one big reserve is more than the sum of several small reserves. It means a
larger gene pool, more genetic diversity and therefore healthier populations
with a higher degree of adaptability.

It also
means that also means that the different “breeding-back” results, Taurus
cattle, Tauros cattle, Auerrind cattle, Uruz cattle (if the latter project
comes underway), and well-selected Heck cattle will amalgamate into one big,
indistinguishable type of very aurochs-like cattle. One would maybe need a new
term for those, but I simply suggest to stick with “aurochs-like cattle”.

The
creation of the large metapopulation of course requires (a more or less coordinated)
cooperation between the projects and breeders.

At least
one reserve having a complete megafauna

Currently,
there are no reserves that have restored a complete Holocene megafaunal
community in Europe. I hope that by 2050 we have at least one reserve that is
large enough to support populations of deer, wild boar, cattle, horses, wisent
and elk that are prayed on by wolves, lynxes and bears. Only when a reserve is
inhabited by the complete faunal assemblage we can watch the interaction
between the species properly. Otherwise, such as in the lack of predators or
with several other species lacking, some species might be outcompeted by
others. This might be the case with cattle at Oostvaardersplassen (more on that
in an upcoming post).

Feral
populations

This brings
me to the next point: feral populations. Nowadays, in 2017, there are three
main cattle populations that have a solid history of dedomestication:
Chillingham cattle, Betizu and Heck cattle at Oostvaardersplassen. As for the
first, today it is a breed represented by two herds that have a century-long
history of natural breeding and strong selective pressure for resistance
against the local climate and certain diseases. The owners of this special
breed will certainly strive for maintaining their existence and I would be
happy if single individuals would contribute to the “breeding-back” gene pool in
some way (which is why I listed it among my list of alternative breeds for
“breeding-back”). Regarding Betizu, this breed also has a century-long history
of natural breeding and was not husbanded by humans, and even hunted. It would
be interesting to maintain a feral population of this landrace somewhere in its
habitat, and I would also like to see it contributing to the “breeding-back”
gene pool (which is why it is on the list as well).

While the
period the OVP Heck population has been existing is considerably smaller than
in the former two cases, the initial morphological diversity was high, as much
as the selective pressure due to the limited area size. Therefore the
population has already experienced some considerable evolutionary process,
which is why I hope this population will not disappear. Whatever is going to
happen to Oostvaardersplassen, and even if the cattle will be finally
outcompeted in the reserve by deer and horses, I hope that at least some of the
cattle there will be saved in some way. However, my favoured scenario for this
herd would be an expansion of the reserve, a boost of genetic diversity by
adding new aurochs-like cattle (perhaps also in the form of pure individuals of
primitive breeds), and best would be the introduction of predators (there are
reasons to assume this would put some pressure from the cattle in particular).

As for
feral cattle in general, I hope that by 2050 at least some of the aurochs-like
populations will be in a state that can be considered feral.

This is my
vision for aurochs-like cattle by 2050, and I am pretty confident that these
goals can be achieved.

9 comments:

Hi Daniel, where in Europe do you think we will be able to see a large enough reserve to contain the complete Holocene megafaunal community; Poland, the Carpathians, Hungary, the Rhodopes, Massif Central, North Iberia? I can only imagine that marginal and mountainous farmland will continue to be abandoned in the future and a large reserve could become a posibility. In order for locals to want to have such a reserve near them that could attract visitors, a reserve would need to have some areas where animals are seen at high densities and interacting with each other as in parts of Africa.

And maybe African Forest Elephant acclimatising in the south of Spain as a proxy for the Straight-tusked Elephant and Indian Elephants acclimatising in the Rhodopes as a proxy for mammoths; there - I said it! ;)

I really doubt that Indian elephants could survive there. Mammoths probably would not have lived in the rhodopes of the Holocene, it is not their biome, if any then Paleoloxodon would be found there. We don't know if extant elephants are ecologically equal to it.

"Where in Europe in thirty years time do you think would be most likely to host the full suite of megaherbivores and predators?"

Chernobyl exclusion zone?

Most of European megafauna is already present there, including wisent (in small numbers) and wild horse (przewalski's horse - not sure about if it is the right type of horse - however, they have so far survived there).

Hi Daniel. It will be interesting to know how and if new crispr technologies will be employed with back breeding selection. The two combined actions could really boost genetic diversity creating a real auroch genetic pool. What do you think about crispr?

Hi, I don't really see a point in tampering around using CRISPR-cas9 on domestic cattle, but this technique (genome editing to be precise) bears the potential to create a genuine aurochs that is genuine in almost every respect. This is what I would try to focus on. I have a post on that upcoming.

Our UK Environment Secretary of State, Michael Gove, has described the above blog piece as 'fascinating' - so at least one senior government minister in Europe appears amenable to the idea of re-building megafauna populations.....

About this blog

This blog is on everything related to the so-called “breeding-back” of extinct animals: From the extinct animals themselves, over their often domestic descendants and dedomestication to news and facts about various breeding-back projects, reports and photos from my own breeding-back related trips. I try to have a balanced and fact-based approach to this subject and to dismantle many of the popular myths. Enjoy!

Labels

About me

My major interest always have been extinct animals, from dinosaurs to Pleistocene megafauna and more recent extinctions. Besides that I am interested in evolution, genetics and ecology.
I am also an amateur animal artist, making drawings and models mostly of extinct animals.